“Autocrats like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin understand this best of all. Having carefully studied the collapse of one-party states around the world, the Chinese Communist Party has chosen old-fashioned patriotism as the centrepiece of its strategy to rally popular support. In Russia, where the 2011 protest movement has ebbed away, members of the democratic opposition are easily typecast as lackeys of the nefarious West, slyly attempting to import alien values inimical to Russia’s treasured traditions.

Democrats underestimate the tyrants at their peril: modern dictators have proven far more sophisticated and adaptable than their opponents want to admit. The defenders of a free society need to keep this in mind in the years ahead. Complacency is not an option.”